The central tragedy of this book is the arrival of the Red Army in late 1944, raping, butchering and smashing its way through a civilization more than half a millennium old in a bloodbath that was both berserker vengeance and cold ethnic cleansing.

Wordmap

Word visualization

Comments

Berserkers were Viking warriors that wore bear-skin shirts to look more intimidating—the berserkers were also trained to embody the spirit of an enraged bear, and summon up all their inner heat and rage to be more effective in combat. This process was facilitated by the ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

This is part of why the vikings were so terrifying. You'd be minding your own business in some village in Northern Europe or along the English coast, and suddenly a long-boat full of angry dudes, dressed in skins, stoned out of their minds and convinced they were predatory animals, would show up and start hacking everything to pieces.